Hiya from the fence!

So... I'm living the all-too-common 21st century story. Sedentary job, sedentary life, and a whole bunch of bad habits learned from an early age. 5 years ago I weighed 230lbs. 5 weeks ago that was 280. A lot of that came after a reasonably serious injury (broken ribs plus...it zeroed a lot of my physical activity for several months and set a bad pattern in motion) but that is hardly a comfort.

I recently decided to do something about it. I've actually been hitting the gym 3+ days a week for the past 7 weeks, mostly free weights or body weight (lunges, etc), plus stretching, a bit of treadmill (10 minutes to warm up or cool down, depending on mood), and punching. It has made a real improvement (resting heart rate lower, greater capacity for exercise, etc)....which is what brings me here. Since the 24/7 DOMS pain is mostly gone I've started looking for ways to expand my physical activity. Plus I probably have some spare willpower for diet changes. I've been doing research, looking for forums, looking for info, and several people have directed me here.

Since I love vegetables (have since childhood), and seafood, and meat, and when I was at my most fit I regularly walked 10-20 miles in a day and could run a fast 100 meters but I don't think I have ever run a continuous mile, I'm somewhat predisposed to liking many ideas put forth around here. Since I dislike noticeable fat in my food (as in a fatty piece of meat can cause me to gag or in extreme cases vomit and a 1l bottle of extra virgin olive oil is all the oil I usually buy in a year or two), and I like a nice dark rye bread, I'm not sure about parts. The big challenges I see are more humdrum practical, like how do you store quantities of vegetables so you aren't constantly going to the grocery store? A few years ago I made a crock of sauerkraut that kept nicely but that isn't exactly "colorful vegetables".

I bought a bottle of ghee a year...probably more than a year...ago. I transferred some of it to a smaller bottle and gave away the rest. I still have about half of what I kept. :/ I found that eggs fried in ghee taste great but leave me feeling queasy...though I am not sure why. Eggs fried in bacon grease can have a similar effect but after a bit the ghee smell and queasy feelings became somewhat linked in my brain, where the bacon smell had more positive associations. Not that I wouldn't eat it anyway in the right food of course. Never tried coconut oil.

Totally agree I won't lose weight with just exercise. I think I have lost about 5 pounds over the past two months, though that is perhaps misleading (my arms, legs, shoulders, etc. look/feel noticeably different due to changes in muscle). I'm going on the theory that too much change all at once will be counterproductive. Since my level of activity was a big obvious change that needed to happen, I started there and focused on it to get over the initial hump. It seems to be going in the right direction - I feel better and can do more. It made a quick positive impact on my quality of life, which is a great way to start...but it's just the start.

Rancid olive oil...good question. I don't really use much even when it is new though. I don't like oil in salad dressing, never could wrap my head around dipping bread in the stuff. I mainly used it when cooking (e.g. roasting vegetables) or as a bread ingredient (e.g. in pizza dough to increase pliability). A few years ago a family member gave me a small (375ml?) bottle of super-fancy boutique oil, so I switched down in size for awhile, but...shrug.

Cold water fish - basically all fish - is delicious. OK, I haven't found a good way to cook carp, but the rest is about as good as food gets.

Going easy on lean meat will be a challenge...they are usually my favorite cuts. Sirloin, skinless chicken breast, etc. Since I like my red meat rare I avoid the heavily marbled stuff that ends up with streaks of raw white fat. Bacon and the like usually isn't a problem because I cook it crisp and render a lot of the fat out.

Root vegetables are great. Parsnips, yams, radishes, onions, etc, all part of my diet now, along with squash, peppers/chilies, broccoli, cabbage, etc. The problem comes down to variety. If I buy a reasonable variety (bunch of parsnips, bag of onions, bundle of asparagus, a squash, etc.) I have a hard time eating it all before some starts turning. If I concentrate on one food at a time I wear out on that food...at least I have in the past. My body doesn't want a single source of food for very long. Salad greens...I only buy when I have company even though I like salads. Maybe without grains the consumption rate would go up enough that it isn't a problem though.